Archive for 'Rotisserie Chicken'

Bagel Express (Lexington Ave. btw. 39th+40th) has been my go-to bagel place since I started working in Midtown, but I had never thought of going there for lunch until last week, when I noticed a sign advertising rotisserie chicken. I’m a big fan of rotisserie chicken. There’s just no better way to ensure a moist, and flavorful bird. I ordered the quarter chicken with two sides for $5.99, although I’m sure most Lunchers will want to go for the half chicken meal, which still costs only $7.99. As far as the sides go, you can choose from an assortment of mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, rice, and plantains. I went for the mac and cheese and roasted summer squash with bell peppers.

Oops! Sorry Whole Foods… I posted a few weeks ago about the rotisserie chicken at the newly opened Brassierie Cognac Boulangerie (B’way btw. 55+56th), totally forgetting that you have a much cheaper option at your location on 8th Ave. & 58th St. in the basement of the Time Warner Center. A whole chicken in the prepared foods section is just $7.99 (compared to $13.95 at Cognac) and half is just $4.99 (compared to $7.99), plus there’s money left over to fill up on sides at their by the lb. buffet. Damn that’s a good deal (and makes eating an entire chicken, well within your Midtown Lunch price boundaries!)

The “Boulangerie” attached to Brasserie Cognac, a 3 week old, mid-scale French restaurant from the owners of Serafina, is now open- and as promised, they are selling rotisserie chicken to go, at lunchtime. *Sigh* rotisserie chicken. Is there anything you can’t do? I am no history-ologist, but this is how I imagine rotisserie chicken was invented. A really really really long time ago, somebody took a chicken, and held it over a fire for awhile. And it was good. And all was right with the world.

Then, for some reason, and who knows how or why (but thankfully it happened), another guy said, “What it we take that same chicken, cover it in egg and flour, and drop it into this incredibly hot oil.” And he did. And what came out, was pure magic. Nobody had any reason to eat that other kind of chicken anymore. Why bother? (Nobody cared about being healthy when all this was going on.) This newfangled “fried chicken” was the greatest invention in the history of man. (Yes- better than even the wheel, whose sole purpose, as far as I can tell, is to get us from our homes, to somewhere where we can buy fried chicken.)

So then, the original guy, who put the chicken over the fire (I’m sure he was still alive, or maybe it was one of his great grand-kids), was like “Nobody is eating my chicken anymore! I’ve got to come up with something better! What if I stacked all the chickens on top of each other, and then, as they cooked over the fire, all the chicken fat from the top chickens will drip down onto the ones below. Then, we’ll turn this whole contraption (with that wheel thing mentioned before), so the grease, and fat will just keep moving from chicken to chicken.” And that is why fried chicken isn’t the only chicken we eat today. Oh to be alive when these magical things happened in our worlds history!

And now, you can get a slightly overpriced, Midtown version, on Broadway btw. 55+56th. Read more »

In the pantheon of great foods, rotisserie chicken has got to be towards the top, somewhere just below fried chicken and above every other kind of chicken imaginable. You may say the secret ingredient is the chicken fat waterfall, created by rotating chickens stacked one on top of another. Now that’s some Chinese water torture I can get into.

Golden brown skin is the key to what makes rotisserie chicken so great, but once you add super cheap prices, Latin style side dishes, and Peruvian aji (green sauce), you’ve got a real winner. Sound good? Well then head to Tio Pio West (the original is in Brooklyn) on 36th btw. 5+6th, where $7.50 will buy you half a chicken, rice, beans, and plantains. Oh, and not to mention a fairly big cup of aji.